Dear Johannes, Then it would be in French `un argument qui se déplace', or `un argument se déplaçant'.
Well, to be frank I had already raised the question on the fr.comp.text.tex forum (see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/fr.comp.text.tex/moving$20argument$20mouvant%7Csort:relevance/fr.comp.text.tex/5nlade2hwPM/sjuv7LDbCwAJ) When I raised this discussion, my original question was « what would be the best translation for « moving argument » ? », but at once the discussion turned into answering another question: « what would be the best naming for « moving argument » ? », and I must admit that at that time I did not notice that. It occurred in the discussion that people do not really agree that « argument mouvant » (litterally equal to « moving argument ») is a good name from the explanatory point of view --- meaning that if those French TeXies had been English-speaker, they would not have agreed either with the orinal « moving argument » term. That is the first thing that was pointed out to me : this argument does not really move, it is not like a float or suchlike that will go here and there every time you modify the text around, it is defined in some fixed position and usually it is executed some one or several other fixed position(s). Hence the term « argument mobile » (litterally « mobile argument » is the one proposed in http://cahiers.gutenberg.eu.org/cg-bin/article/CG_2007___49_19_0.pdf which is an article about translating LaTeX terminology from English to French. It was however acknowledged that « argument mouvant » is sometimes used in French, but with some guilty feeling of making a lazy translation. Somebody-else proposed that better terms would be « copied / cloned / duplicated / replicated / ubiquited argument », another proposal was « multiple-use / delayed-use argument » (where « use » is preferred to « expansion » as some partial expansion happens when the argument is written to the aux file). I also put into the bucket « relooped argument » and « reentering argument » (I translated all these proposals to English for you, but they were made in French or French+English in the original discussion). Somebody raised that Leslie Lamport gives only a fuzzy explanation of what a moving argument really is, some part of the introductory text of the problem of fragile/robust commands sounds even like an explanation for kids : When carried from where it appears in the input file to the other places it is used, the argument of a sectioning command is shaken up quite a bit. Some LaTeX commands are fragile and can break when they appear in an argument that is shaken in this way. So if we translate in French by `un argument qui se déplace', or by `un argument se déplaçant', we use some stylistically flat language to stick to the original term « moving argument », and that probably will make it even more unpleasant to French-speaking TeXies. Said otherwise, we loose the poetical strength of the original term, while not gaining any clarity. In the end of the discussion I concluded that anyway « argument mobile » is not so good either because, while keeping the idea of mobility found in « moving argument » it tries to give a better explanation of what it is, which anyway does not seems to have been Leslie Lamport's intention when choosing this « moving argument » term. It is like stopping in the middle of a ford : either you keep the more poetical original idea, or you try to be technically exact, but « argument mobile » does not succeed in either targets. That is why all this discussion made me even more strongly opinionated that « argument mouvant » is a better translation. It has two advantages in my view : - respect to the original English term by Leslie Lamport, - anyway what matters is the explanation behind it, which cannot fit into a two words phrase, so coining such a strange term as « moving argument » may be the best possible incentive to read further explanations. Vincent. Le 15/11/2016 à 19:49, Johannes Böttcher a écrit : > Not a native english speaker here. > You threw 'déplacer' into the bowl of words. Wouldn't that be the > perfect word? A moving argument can be moved to a different place and > used there as well (captions for example). Personally, i think > déplacer might be a good fit in this instance. Having the english > original in parenthesis as well might be another option to decrease > confusion. > > Johannes > [...] --- L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par le logiciel antivirus Avast. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
